Busted Play
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: A Taylor family drama featuring Eric, Tami, Julie, Matt, and Gracie. This FNL fanfic is set post-season finale.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

"How long is she going to be staying here?" Eric looked out over their black granite kitchen island through the sliding glass door at Julie, who sat on the rim of the hot tub. Next to her, an eleven-year-old Gracie dipped her toes in the water.

The hot tub was turned off for the summer, and four-year-old Jackson was paddling about it in his bright orange floaties as if it were a pool. Eric had been surprised when Matt and Julie chose such a good, sturdy, Southern name for boy, but then Tami told him they'd named the kid after the artist Jackson Pollock.

Julie and Jackson had been here for five days, and Julie had barely spoken about Matt during that time. By the third day, Eric and Tami decided something was wrong and that Julie was probably running from it, but they tip-toed around the subject and patiently waited for their daughter to talk.

Tami sighed and leaned back against the stainless steel refrigerator. "Until they work this out."

Eric whipped off his red-and-white coaching cap and set it on the island countertop. Summer training wouldn't start until Monday, but as the new head coach of the Braemore Bloodhounds, he'd been in the office planning and meeting all summer long. Braemore's football program was fledgling and starved for resources, and it didn't help that everyone whispered he'd only gotten the job because he was sleeping with the Dean of Admissions. "What exactly are they working out?"

"I know as much as you do, hon."

He scratched his head. Distinguished streaks of silver were creeping into his dark hair, but his face still looked closer to forty than fifty. "Do you think he cheated on her?"

"No," Tami said. "Not Matt. It's probably just…the seven year itch. You know how it is."

"No, I don't. I didn't itch. There was no itching on my part. Did you itch?"

"We had our challenges, Eric. You know we did."

He sighed. "But even if one or both of them is _itching_ a little…a woman shouldn't just up and take a kid away from his father and move back into her parents' house!"

"She's not moving in."

"She sure brought a hell of a lot of stuff," he said.

"She's just…she said she wants to stay for the last two weeks of summer. You know she has to get back before the school year starts for in-services."

Julie was teaching English in Savannah, Georgia, where they'd moved just before she got pregnant with Jackson. Matt was working for the largest art gallery in the city, and he was the guy who decided what art to buy and went around the country acquiring it. It was a well-paid position, certainly more than Eric had been making at the age of twenty-seven. He was surprised his daughter and son-in-law had ended up in the South, while he and Tami had settled solidly in the mid-Atlantic, but Savannah apparently had a vibrant art community.

Eric looked at Tami. "Are you gonna ask her – "

He fell silent as Julie plucked Jackson from the hot tub and the kids began to walk toward the sliding glass door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Jackson, wrapped in a towel, now free of his waterwings, ran to his grandfather with arms outstretched. Eric lifted him up.

"Football!" Jackson said.

"Damn right," Eric replied.

"Dad," Julie said, "please don't swear in front of my son."

Eric shook his head and started carrying Jackson toward the front door, because the front yard was flatter than the back and better for playing football. He set the boy down and told him to get changed and put on his shoes. Jackson ran into the laundry room where his mother had left their clean clothes in a basket.

"You comin', Gracie?" Eric asked over his shoulder.

Gracie was his surprise sports lover. Her long, luxurious blonde hair was the only thing that belied her tomboy nature, but she kept it in a ponytail when she played. Coach Taylor had been prepared to dress her in pretty ballet costumes and jazz dance shoes like her big sister, and she'd just wanted to wear jerseys and play football.

Gracie had asked to sign up for a co-ed youth flag football league when she was in first grade. "I don't know about the co-ed part," Eric had told Tami, and she'd said, "She's _six_, Eric." Gracie had played on that league for five years, and she had been team captain for the last two.

"Of course," she answered, and joined him in the high-ceilinged, tiled foyer where they waited for Jackson. "By the way, I need you to sign a permission form so I can try out for the team."

"They don't still bother to make you try out, do they?" Gracie was the best player in her flag football league and had been for some time.

"I mean for the _school_ football team." She'd be entering 6th grade this fall and going to Benjamin Middle School. "Summer try-outs are tomorrow afternoon."

"You can't be on the middle school team," Eric told her. "You're a girl."

"Mom says girls can do whatever boys can do."

"I don't think she was talking about tackle football, sweetpea."

"And they _have_ to let me try out. It's the _law_."

"I don't know that it's the _law_," Eric said.

It _was_ a ruling, however. If there wasn't an equivalent girls' team – and there wasn't, not for tackle football– they had to let the girls try out. That was true now all the way up through high school. Eric thought that was among one of the most asinine things he'd ever heard. Thankfully, though, girls usually _didn't_ try out.

He'd had one girl come out for the Pioneers a few years ago. He hadn't put the girl on the team, and her irate mother had called to chew him out. He'd had to tell the woman that the girl just wasn't any good. The mom had called him a "backwards chauvinist," and he'd said, "Listen, ma'am. My seven-year-old daughter plays football better than your seventeen-year-old girl. _That's_ why she didn't make the team."

At least in middle school, the girls were still just as tall if not taller than the boys, and Gracie was both tall and strong. But football was a _contact_ sport.

"It's not that you aren't capable, Gracie," he told her, "it's that…well…it'll be _all_ boys on that team except you. You know it will. That's just the way it is."

"I won't be sharing the locker room with them, Dad! They'll let me get dressed in the girl's locker room or the office or whatever."

"But it's _tackle_. It's isn't flag anymore. Those boys are gonna be all on top of you."

"Oh, please!"

"The answer is no, Gracie. You can stick with your flag league."

"That league doesn't _go_ past sixth grade. I'll only be able to do it one more year. I might as well get on the middle school team now, because I'll _have_ to in 7th grade."

He shook his head. "We'll try to find you a girls' tackle team in 7th grade – a community league of some kind."

"There aren't any within sixty miles! I checked! "

"We'll find something. We'll find some kind of football for you to play. But you are _not_ trying out for the boys' middle school team. End of discussion."

"Fine!" she shouted. "Enjoy your football with Jackson. I'm sure you'll be happy to have him try out for _his_ middle school team! Because I'm just a _girl_!"

"Gracie, don't be – "

She circled around him and went through the door to the garage to get her bike. He leaned against the door frame. In the nearby laundry room, Jackson was still struggling to pull on his shirt. "Gracie – "

"I'm going to Andrew's! I'll be back by dinner." The garage door cranked up and Gracie jetted out.

Andrew lived two blocks away and had been Gracie's best friend since second grade. It was an odd friendship, because Andrew had no interest whatsoever in sports. He had played one season of soccer in second grade and then told his mom he wanted to quit. She'd asked him if he wanted to play baseball instead, and he'd said, "Gee, mom, a guy could get hurt doing that." He didn't even watch any sports.

Eric once asked Andrew what position he would like to play in football if he were ever to play, and he'd answered, "Outfield." The boy played the violin. Andrew was first chair in the 4th and 5th grade orchestra. According to Tami, that was sort of like being the QB1 of orchestra. Eric had never even heard of a 4th and 5th grade orchestra in Dillon. They had orchestra in high school, sure, but not 4th grade.

But they were east coast people now.

He glanced back into the laundry room.

"Help!" Jackson said. The boy had managed to get his shirt on (backwards) and his elastic shorts on, but he was struggling with his shoes.

"Bubba," Eric said, "you really should be able to put on your own shoes by now." He walked into the laundry room, got down on his knees, and started shoving the shoes on.

Julie's voice rose from behind them. "Don't call him _Bubba_, Dad. That's so deep South."

Eric stood from his kneeling position. "Where do you live again? Savannah, did you say?"

She crossed her arms over herself. "It wasn't my first choice. But I guess a woman is expected to follow her husband for his job. Maybe in twenty years I'll get a _turn_ like Mom." She bit her bottom lip suddenly, as if she were trying not to cry.

"Julie…" he reached for her instinctively, but he dropped his hand. He glanced down at Jackson, who was looking expectantly at his mother. Eric wanted to ask Julie what had gone wrong, but this wasn't the time, not in front of the boy. Besides, if he got Jackson out of the house, Tami and Julie would have some privacy for a mother-daughter chat. "You ready, Bubba?"

The boy nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

While Eric and Jackson were outside tossing the football, Tami poured two cups of coffee and led Julie to the formal dining room. It wasn't the most homey room in the house – they only used it when they were entertaining guests – but it was the least open room downstairs and therefore had an air of privacy. At 3,000-square feet, their current house was quite a bit larger than their first home in Philadelphia had been. "It's too big to maintain," Eric had grumbled when Tami wanted to buy it. "We've only got _one_ kid."

"It's the _smallest_ house in the neighborhood," she'd shot back.

"Because it's a richy-rich neighborhood."

"But the public schools are excellent. We couldn't ask for better for Gracie." They had both agreed they needed to get her out of the elementary school she was in at the time. It had been pursuing "new math" and was about to introduce "open classrooms" the following year. "Or do you want to stay where we are and send her to private school? Pay thousands a year and drive her every day?"

He'd sighed and looked around. "It _is_ a beautiful house. But you know we're going to be the poor white trash of the neighborhood."

"Sugar, we make a _lot_ of money between the two of us now. We'll hire a lawn service, and we'll get a monthly maid service. And we'll still have plenty of money left over for you to _hoard_."

Eric had grown accustomed to the size of the house. He'd claimed the fourth bedroom as an office, turned the basement into a game room, planted a big screen television over the gas fireplace in the living room, and filled up half of the 2.5-car garage with a workbench and a slew of tools he never used.

Tami now studied her daughter. "Are you going to tell me what's going on? I've been waiting for you talk, but I _can't_ wait any more, Julie. What are you still doing here? And why aren't you checking in with Matt regularly?"

Julie pulled her coffee cup close. "I'm just giving Matt some space to cool down."

"To cool down from what?" Tami knew the expression that now crossed her daughter's face - shame. "Sweetie?" she asked. "Whatever it is, I'm not going to judge you."

Julie traced a dark grain in the cherry oak table. "Yes, you are."

"No, Julie babe, I promise you I'm not."

"You are. Because I kissed another guy."

Tami gripped her coffee cup tighter. "You mean, _he_ kissed _you_." Like Glen had kissed her that one time. She and Eric had been married nearly twenty years by then, and Eric knew better than to misread that. They'd already talked about Glen by then anyway. Eric hadn't even hit the man. He'd just complained about kissing Glen by proxy. But Matt and Julie had only been married seven years. Matt was probably just misinterpreting the occurrence and overreacting.

"I…I don't really know who kissed who first," Julie admitted.

Tami closed her eyes. When she opened them, the brown ripples in the coffee were circling out. She didn't know what to say. Her counselor voice failed her. She hadn't been a counselor in years anyway. She'd been in administration. She fixed problems, but not _these_ kinds of problems.

"Matt's been so busy," Julie said. "He's been traveling to all these art shows, all over the country, to buy stuff for the gallery. He's gone ten days out of every month. And when he's home, he's usually either working at the gallery or painting. He locks himself in that shed and gets irritated if I bother him." Matt had built a studio next to their two-bedroom rambler in Savanah. "He says he has to work hard because he wants to buy into the gallery in ten years, become a partner or something like that. And I'm worried about Jackson. He's not learning his ABC's or counting to twenty, and sometimes he acts more like a two year old than a four year old, but Matt just _refuses_ to admit that anything might be wrong. So, I started talking to this other teacher at work about Jackson a lot. And then….this summer…we met for coffee a few times."

"Oh, Julie," Tami said. She didn't mean to say it in that tone, but it slipped out.

"And he…he listened. You know? He listened. And…one time…he walked me to my car, and…we kissed."

"You mean…a quick peck?"

"I don't know. Maybe for four or five minutes."

"Oh, Julie."

Julie's lip began to quiver. "I didn't…I didn't know what I was doing!" She started to cry. "I was so lonely. And he was so nice. And I…I told Matt…because I _didn't_ want it to go any farther…I didn't want to end up having an affair. But I wish I hadn't told him now, that I had just ended it with that guy and _never_ told him, because Matt completely blew up at me and called me a liar and a cheater…and…" She was sobbing now. "I think I completely destroyed my marriage! I've tried to call Matt every day, for the past five days, and he won't return any of my calls! I've destroyed my marriage!"

"Oh, honey, no, no…." Tami walked over and hugged her weeping daughter. "You didn't destroy it. It just _feels_ like that right now. You didn't destroy it, but it's taken a beating, and it's going to take time – and a lot of work – to heal it. But you're going to, Julie, baby. You two are _going_ to heal it."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

At dinner that evening Julie was awkwardly silent while Jackson was busy shoveling food in his face.

"He's a good eater," Tami said.

"So am I," Eric replied, "but no one ever compliments me for it."

Gracie lay down her fork. "Mom, Dad said I can't try out for the middle school football team. Did he by any chance discuss that with you first?"

Eric looked from Gracie to Tami. Tami raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm sure your mother agrees with me," he said firmly. "I wouldn't have made the call if I didn't already think she did."

"Well," Gracie said. "I just know mom _prefers_ that you discuss major parenting decisions instead of acting _unilaterally_."

Julie, who had been toying with her food, asked, "Unilaterally? Wow, Gracie. Nice vocab."

Gracie shrugged.

Tami turned her attention from her husband to her daughter. "Gracie, I don't appreciate you trying to play me against your father."

As Gracie shifted in her seat, Julie interjected to spare her: "Why don't we go out and catch a movie? My treat?"

Gracie looked eagerly at her parents. "Can I?"

**[*]**

Eric put Jackson down to bed while the girls were out. "He fell asleep half way through _Yertle the Turtle_," he told Tami as he returned to the kitchen.

Tami put two glasses down at the kitchen bar. He poured their wine and sat on a bar stool beside her. "Shouldn't Jackson be out of pull-ups?" he asked. "I mean, I hear boys sometimes wet their beds for a long while, but in the _day_? He's _four_ now."

"Yeah, that's one of the things Julie is worried about. She's worried he has developmental issues, and Matt isn't listening to her concerns."

"Is _that_ why she's here? Just because they don't agree on a parenting issue?"

"Not exactly," Tami said. She told him what Julie had told her.

Eric kicked back his stool and paced the living room and kitchen, which were connected by a single tile floor. He buried a hand in his hair and circled the kitchen island. Finally, he came to a standstill in front of the sliding glass door, his hands on his hips, staring out at the yard. He took a deep breath and turned to Tami, who had remained seated at the bar. "How did we raise an adulterer?" he asked. "_How?_"

"Don't call her that," Tami said.

"You know this isn't the first time!"

"She's never cheated on Matt. She - "

"- I'm talking about that damn T.A. in college. She knew he was married. She had sex with a _married_ man, Tami. And now…" He threw up his hand. "She's married! A mother! And she's making out with some guy who's not her husband? And she chased that damn Swede when she and Matt were still dating. Maybe she's just a cheater at heart."

"Eric!"

"Well, what the hell am I supposed to think?"

"She's our daughter!"

He rubbed his face.

"She knows she's done a bad thing, Eric, and she's ashamed."

"Well she _should_ be."

"And Matt's not perfect either. You remember when he ran off that first time to Chicago and didn't even _call_ her? You remember how much that upset you."

"That doesn't justify her making out years later with - "

" - He hasn't been there for her _lately_," Tami interrupted. "He's been working a lot."

"That's no excuse! What, you think when it's football season, and I have all the away games and the meetings and the practices, it'd be okay for you to go make out with some other guy!"

"Of course not! But every marriage goes through hard times, Eric. You know ours has. And I'm sure we've both been tempted."

"Being tempted and acting on that temptation are two very different things."

"But I'm sure you know how strong the temptation can be. Lord knows I do."

"What?" he stepped from the sliding glass door back to the other side of the bar. He stood staring at her. "Who tempted you?"

"Never mind."

"Don't never mind me. Who tempted you?"

"Just…some professor at Braemore last year when you were QB coaching for Temple University. You were _never_ home during football season."

Eric had worked for only one year in that position. The requirements of the Temple job had been intense. The head coach expected nothing less than complete devotion to the team, and he measured that devotion almost exclusively by the time spent in the office and on the field. Coach Marlow didn't care if you had a family, and he made it clear you'd lose your job if you didn't put in the hours he expected. The meetings were constant and often unnecessary. Eric's house was only fifteen miles from Temple, but he couldn't seem to get home. He'd slept in the office five nights a week. When Eric and Tami _were_ together, they fought about his job.

So when the Braemore head coaching position opened up, Tami asked him to put in for it. She told him that their marriage couldn't weather another season like that. It was a _head_ coaching position, but it actually paid $20,000 a year less than his QB coaching job had. Braemore just didn't have much of a budget for football. There wasn't nearly as much prestige involved in coaching for Tami's university as there had been in coaching for Temple, but he'd be in charge. He wouldn't tell himself not to go home when he knew he had a handle on things. He wouldn't make himself sit through extra, unnecessary meetings as a mere show of power. He wouldn't have to sleep in the office.

"What professor?" he asked now.

"Just some professor. He teaches at U-Penn now. I haven't seen him in three months. He's not around anymore. Nothing happened. But he was real friendly with me."

Through his gritted teeth, Eric asked, "How friendly?"

"Friendly enough that I knew the door was open. And he was intelligent and attractive and you weren't around and, yeah…I was tempted. But I _never_ acted on it."

"What's his name?"

"Eric, _nothing_ happened. You did what I asked you to do, you quit that awful Temple job, and our marriage improved. I'm very happy right now."

"Damn, Tami."

"Don't tell me you've never been in a similar situation."

"Yeah, okay, I have," he admitted.

"Wait? When? Who?"

He laughed. "You just said you knew I had been. Why are you upset now?"

"Well…I just…I'm not upset. I just want to _know_."

"When Julie was first born. You were so irritable and disinterested in sex. You didn't listen to me when I talked. There was this woman at school…she flirted with me. She paid _attention_ to me. She was interested in what I had to say. Like you said, I knew the door was open. But I didn't walk through it. I started avoiding her. Things got better between you and me. She vanished from my mind."

"Okay, so we both know what that temptation is like."

"Yeah – and we both know that you _don't_ give into it. You resist it."

"Well," said Tami, gripping her wine glass, "Julie _did_ resist it. After the initial slip up, she came clean with Matt so she _wouldn't_ be tempted to have an all-out affair."

"Slip up?" Eric asked. His hands were on his hips. He'd barely touched his wine. "She snuck around behind his back, dating some guy – "

"She wasn't _dating_ him."

"They were going out for coffee repeatedly and having intimate conversations. She was sneaking around, dating some guy, and then _making out_ with him – "

"They kissed, Eric. They kissed – "

"- For five minutes! Don't tell me that if I was sneaking around having coffee dates with some woman, and I kissed her for _five minutes_ by her car, you wouldn't tell me to pack my bags and get the hell out."

She sighed and sipped her wine. When she'd set it down she said. "Yeah, ten or twenty years ago, I would have."

"And you wouldn't if it happened today?"

"We've been married almost three decades, sugar. We have an eleven-year-old girl. I'd be mad as hell, but divorce would be off the table." She pointed a finger at him. "That's not permission, by the way."

"But you can see why this thing between Matt and Julie isn't going to be patched up with a band aid. And if this is some kind of habit with her - "

"It's not a _habit_, Eric," Tami insisted. "They're just going through a lot. He had his part to play too."

"Well that's not going to work telling him that."

"But if Matt doesn't change too – if he doesn't make more time for her – if he doesn't listen to her concerns… Fidelity requires a certain environment that _both_ people have to contribute to. You know that."

"Fidelity is morally required regardless of the environment, Tami. No excuses." Eric's face was contorted with anger and something like fear. "Do you really think _anything_ justifies cheating?"

"I've _never_ cheated on you, Eric. In _any_ way. I've never kissed another man since we've been married. Well…_Glen_. But _he_ kissed _me_."

Eric leaned on the bar and sighed.

Tami kissed him. He responded for only an instant before standing up again. "Jackson," he muttered. "That poor kid."

"Julie said Matt didn't come home the night she told him, and she doesn't know where he stayed."

"I doubt it was in some other woman's bed," Eric said.

"I doubt it was too, hon, but when he came home the next day, he just yelled at her."

"You don't say?"

"And the next day they fought. And the next he wouldn't speak to her at all. So she left him a note that she was coming down here to give him time to cool off. But they're going to need to talk about it eventually. I think you should call Matt and talk to him about it. Man to man."

"And say what, exactly? Sorry your wife cheated on you, betrayed you, emasculated you, but hey, get over it!"

"Don't be sarcastic, Eric. Just persuade him to get some marriage counseling. To _talk_ to her. To _try_ to fix it."

"What if it _can't_ be fixed?" he asked.

She turned her eyes up to the ceiling. Jackson was asleep upstairs, above the kitchen. "It _has_ to be."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

"You told Dad, didn't you?"

Tami glanced up from her laptop as Julie, who had just put Jackson down for a nap, sat across from her at the kitchen table. Tami tended to work from home whenever she could manage to do so, because it gave her more time with Gracie, who was otherwise a latch key kid. At the start of Gracie's fifth grade year, Tami and Eric had taken her out of before- and after-school care and given her a cell phone and the keys to the house. She was generally responsible. Her homework was always done before dinner, and she was a solid B student – nothing exceptional, but no cause for concern. She got around on her bike to school and the library and friend's houses, and there was a retired neighbor next door she could always run to in an emergency. Even so, Tami would check in with her daughter regularly and panic out when she didn't answer her cell phone. Gracie had learned to check messages and call back quickly. Yet Tami found even when she did work from home, Gracie would often take off to hang out with friends, as she had now.

"Of course I told him," Tami said, lowering her laptop screen so she could look at Julie. "Your father and I don't keep secrets from each other, especially not about our children."

Julie slumped down in her kitchen chair. "Yeah, because you have the _perfect_ marriage don't you?"

"No, we don't have the _perfect_ marriage. We have an _imperfect_ marriage we work hard at so that it stays a _good_ marriage."

"Why does marriage have to be _work_?" Julie asked. "If marriage is this _hard_, why does anyone bother?"

"Because it's _worth_ it, Julie. The good times are worth it. Think of your best times with Matt. Would you unwish a single one of those? Over the years, the good times outweigh the bad, and the comfort you can find in one another …it's priceless. Honey, it's hard right now. I know. And it's going to be hard for the next year or two, while you slug through some things together. But you have to roll up your sleeves, Julie. You have to dig around in that dirt and get your relationship growing again."

Julie smiled slightly through the pain. "Nice metaphor, Mom."

"Well I don't know what else to say to you, Jules."

"What else is there to say?" Julie looked directly in her mother's eyes. "I was weak and selfish and I screwed up my marriage. I destroyed my family, and Matt's never going to forgive me. So _what_ is there to say?" She stood up and began to walk away.

"You don't know that," Tami said. "Come back here!"

Julie stopped and turned.

"You don't know he's not going to forgive you. But you've got to be willing to weather his anger, Julie. If you love him, you need to wait out the storm. And then he needs to address your concerns too."

Julie hugged herself. "Do you…do you really think there's a chance for us?"

"Of course I do."

"Dad hardly looks at me," she said. "If my own father can't forgive me…how can my husband?"

**[*]**

Tami eased into Eric's arms in bed. He felt as comfortable to her as one of those pillows that is specifically contoured for the individual body. She let out a sleepy murmur as one of his hands found its way into her hair.

"Who was the professor?" he asked.

"Oh, Lord, Eric! Let it go."

"I'm just _curious_."

She rolled onto her back and rested her hands on her stomach. "No good can come of this."

He turned his head slightly to look at her. "Was it that Film Studies professor? That Dr. Connelly?"

Tami was surprised Eric remembered the name. He only came to the faculty parties with her once every three months, and his eyes had glazed over when Dr. Connelly started talking about the symbolism of Citizen Kane.

"Was it?" Eric stroked the fine stubble on his cheek. He never could grow a beard. He'd tried to before, but it always came in patchy. "Is it his beard?" he asked. "Is that what you like?"

"Lord, Eric, Dr. Connelly is only four years older than my son-in-law! Do you think I'd be attracted to a mere boy? "

"Was it Dr. Merill then? That psychology professor who's always trying to talk to you at the parties?"

"Dr. Merill is gay, sugar. You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"No."

"It was Dr. Zerjawi."

"Who?"

"You never met him. You were too busy to go to any of the parties last year, and he was an Arabic Studies professor for only one year. We flirted at the parties. That was _all_. "

"But you were attracted to him?"

"Honey, why does this bother you so much? Surely you're attracted to other women all the time."

"What other women? Who? I work with men."

"I don't know. Women at church. Women in the neighborhood."

"Not in the way that you were attracted to Professor Ziggy."

"Zerjawi. I was only attracted to him because I was feeling neglected at home. And I didn't act on it. And now that my love tank's full, I'm not likely to feel _that_ kind of attraction to anyone else."

"Your _love tank_?"

"Don't you remember that book?"

He shook his head.

"Eric, you _told_ me you read it."

"Uh…oh…yeah! The love tank." He rolled on his side and kissed her. "I got to keep that topped off, don't I?" He nibbled her neck and she giggled. "Is your _love tank_ low at the moment?" he whispered. "You need me to fill you up, babe?"

"As long as it's _full service_," she answered as he pressed his body closer to hers, but before he could even slip his hand under her shirt, she said, "You need to let Julie know you love her and that you're going to support her through all this."

He threw himself on his back and sighed. "Why do you do that? We're getting somewhere and – "

" - This is important, Eric. You need to talk to her."

"I've got to calm down first and think about what I'm going to say. I don't want to say the wrong thing. Give me time, Tami."

"Okay, but don't take _too_ much time. And you need to call Matt."

"I need to think about what I'm going to say to him too. You need to back off, babe. I'll do all this when _I'm_ ready."

"Well you do make your own decisions, don't you?"

"What?" He craned his neck to look at her.

"Telling Gracie she couldn't try out for the team without even _discussing_ it with me first."

"Well," he defended himself, "she just kind of sprung it on me. I reacted. Maybe I should have put her off and said I'll discuss it with your mother, but I reacted."

"As you always do, hon." She smiled indulgently and kissed his cheek.

"You think she should try out?" he asked.

"I think some of those boys are starting to go through puberty. And there'll be hormones all over the place," Tami said. "I think there's a lot of touching in tackle football. A lot of lying on top of people. And I don't mean to sound unenlightened, but I'm not exactly comfortable with that."

"So you agree with me? What are you mad at me for if you agree with me?"

"I'm not mad. I'm slightly annoyed you didn't discuss it with me first."

"But she does love football," Eric said with a smile. "Girl loves the sport. I wish they had a girls' tackle team. At least a community league. She can still play flag this year, but what _is_ she going to do after sixth grade?"

"Maybe you can start a girls' tackle league next year, sugar," Tami said. She tried to envision him coaching gaggle of girls and suppressed a laugh.

"Kind of hard to coach a youth league while I'm coaching the Bloodhounds." He shook his head. "But she's gotta play somehow, Tami. She's just gotta play."

He rolled to his side again and buried a hand in her hair. "No one ever tells you how hard this parenting thing is going to be."

"Or that it doesn't end when they turn eighteen."

He kissed her and murmured, "We need a distraction, don't you think?" He began to slowly ease her t-shirt upwards. "A _full-service_ distraction."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Eric slid open the glass door and joined Julie where she sat at the patio table. She had a paperback book open, but she wasn't reading it. She was staring into the woods beyond the fence. There had been so few trees in Texas by comparison. Eric had never had to worry about a little Julie getting lost in the woods behind the house or drowning in the creek, the way he'd worried about Gracie when she was six and inclined to sneak out of the house. Of course, when he thought back to the sort of things he did as a boy, and survived, he wondered why he worried at all. But what if providence didn't smile on Gracie the way it had on him? There were more than a few times when he might have lost a finger or two, or set the brush on fire, or broken more than the collar bone he had broken, if not for fortune.

Eric found as he got older, he got more protective in some arenas, and yet more liberal in others. Letting Gracie become a latchkey kid in 5th grade hadn't been easy for him, but it had been a practical way to teach her responsibility. He wasn't nearly as paranoid about is as Tami was, though. He'd had to remind his wife that she didn't have anyone at home when she got back from school either, and she hadn't had a cell phone, and still no one had snatched her up.

"No," Tami had agreed. "But I started smoking in sixth grade. I tried my first beer in 7th."

"Well you were always a bad girl," Eric had said with a lecherous smile. "Naughty, naughty..."

Tami had laughed as he kissed her.

With two happily married, well-to-do parents, Gracie was experiencing a completely different upbringing than Tami had. In fact, she was experiencing a completely different upbringing than her own sister Julie had. Gracie didn't have a stay-at-home mom like Julie. She lived not in a small Texas town, but in an east coast upper middle-class suburb. She faced immense academic pressure and inhabited a world that valued the arts more than football.

Gracie's elementary school offered dozens of activities Julie would have wanted to do. She probably would have competed in Odyssey of the Mind, gone to one of the special "gifted center" schools starting in 3rd grade, hell, maybe even have been in the orchestra, because if she had grown up with two parents who worked, Eric might not have balked at the outrageous costs of buying an instrument. Gracie, on the other hand, had little interest outside of football.

Eric mused that Julie would have felt more at home here than she had in Dillon, while Gracie would have been a better fit in some small, west Texas town. He supposed, though, that the reversal wasn't such a bad thing - both of his daughters had been forced to learn how to be themselves in a world that wanted them to be someone else. It was a skill he sometimes felt he hadn't fully acquired.

"Hey, Monkey Noodle," he said softly as he sat down in the chair kitty-cornered to hers and set his coffee cup on the tan tile surface of the table.

Julie seemed startled to see him. "You're up early."

He could have said the same of her, but he didn't. "Got try-outs. We have them early to beat the heat."

She laughed a little. "Heat. You think this is _hot_ now?"

"Well, I've had eight years to acclimate to the weather. Feels warm. I guess Savannah's about fifteen degrees hotter right now."

She nodded and fingered the pages of her book.

"You talk to Matt yet?"

Still studying he pages, she shook her head. "He won't answer my calls."

"You gotta give him time. You have to understand…his whole world probably got turned upside down when you told him that. You trust someone completely and – "

"- I know. I'm horrible person. Okay! I know that already!"

"That's _not_ what I said, Julie. A lot of people in your situation wouldn't have stopped themselves. It's hard, once you put that foot forward, to stop. Almost impossible, I guess, which is why it's a _bad idea_ to put that foot forward in the _first place_." He cleared his throat before he found himself saying more about that than he wanted to. "But you _did_ stop. And you turned to Matt. And that says something. It says something about your self-discipline and about how much you love him."

Julie looked at him cautiously.

"But if you want to fix this, you have to realize it isn't going to happen overnight. Right now he's got to feel not just angry but like he's not quite sure of his own senses. Like he's not sure what's true and what's false, because he didn't see this coming. That's a very unnerving place to be."

Julie closed her book and leaned forward slightly.

"I've been there before, when I was betrayed by someone I thought was a good friend. It made me question all of my interactions with people for a while. If I couldn't see _that_ coming…what else couldn't I see coming?" He pulled his coffee cup a little closer and sighed. "And he's your _husband_. You took _vows_. It's going to be hard for him to trust you for a while. You're going to have to reassure him, maybe for longer than you think. Matt…he feels more than he says. All men do, but Matt…Matt especially."

"Well I can't reassure him if he won't even talk to me."

Eric bit his lip and nodded. "He will eventually." He put his elbows on the table. "Listen, I know Matt hasn't been the perfect husband. And I know there are things he needs to do to make your marriage stronger. But make sure you don't blame him for your choice. Don't make excuses. Don't say to him, if only you'd have done x, I wouldn't have done y – even if there's truth in it. Because if you say that, it's going to push him farther away. Other people will tell him that. _You_ don't need to tell him that. You just need to own your part."

Julie laughed. "When did you become Dr. Phil?"

Eric ignored her question and leaned a little closer. "You know, don't you, that you're my daughter, and I'm always going to love you, no matter what?"

Julie swallowed.

"Whatever happens between you and Matt…your parents are here for you. You know that, right?"

She nodded slightly, as if she wasn't sure if she did know it.

"A'ight." He glanced at his watch. "I'm running late." He stood up and put a hand gently on the top of her head. "It's gonna be a'ight," he said, even though he wasn't at all sure it would be.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Eric leaned back in his office chair, arms behind his neck, while his offensive coordinator pointed out a few things on the game tape. Coach O'Donnell paused the tape and said, "And we've got another try-out tomorrow. Some kid – his old high school coach twisted my arm so much, I just thought it would be easier to say yes. I don't expect it to pan out, but you know how relentless some of these high school coaches can be about their boys."

"Ah…yeah…I know."

Coach O'Donnell shut the office door on his way out. Eric glanced around his new office. It was smaller than his office at Dillon High had been. The game tape (nearly all DVDs here, because of the youth of the program) was crammed in two layers on a book case on one wall, and the desk was backed in the corner so that he had to squeeze his way in. There were two chairs opposite him, but no couch. The conference room wasn't much more impressive, but he could squeeze his assistants in there for meetings.

Today's try outs had been disappointing. Eric had been hoping for a miracle to walk on, because the boys he already had - most on only partial scholarships - paled in comparison to the kids he'd coached at both Temple and TMU. He had a lot of work to do with this team, but at least there wasn't much pressure. As long as they didn't fall from second-to-last in their conference to dead last, no one would seek to fire him. But if he could bring them up in the rankings, maybe the football program would get more money next year.

Eric leaned forward in his chair and dialed Matt.

He half hoped his son-in-law wouldn't answer, so he could leave a message and avoid this conversation, but Matt did answer.

"Hey, Coach," he said. After seven years of marriage to Julie, Matt still didn't call him Dad. Eric didn't guess he ever would.

"Hey. You know Julie's up here with Jackson, right?"

Matt let out a heavy breath. "I know. _$250? $50 to ship? I'll take it. I'll be back in a minute._" Eric could hear a door open and close, as though Matt had left the gallery. His voice was suddenly clearer. "Sorry. Why'd you call?"

"Well, because Julie's up here with Jackson."

"Uh-huh."

"And you're down there in Savannah, and – "

"Actually, I'm at a gallery in Seattle at the moment, but I'll be back in Savannah tomorrow."

"Oh. Well, look, son, let me cut the crap and get right down to it. I know what Julie did. She shouldn't have done it. You're pissed as hell, and you have every right to be. But you need to answer her calls. You two need to get into marriage counseling, and you need to work it out."

"Work what out?" Matt muttered. "She…she…"

"I know."

"I would _never_ do that to her!"

Eric had heard anger in Matt's voice before, but never anything like this. Matt's rage against his father, his rage against the world that night Eric threw him in the shower – none of it had never sounded _quite_ like this. Eric couldn't imagine what that betrayal must feel like. "Listen, Matt. I understand your anger, I do. But as disappointed as I am in my daughter, she's even _more_ disappointed in herself. And things like this don't just happen out of nowhere. There are underlying causes – "

" - The underlying cause is some asshole teacher she works with. _He's_ the underlying cause! That and the fact that Julie…Julie can't commit to a man."

"She can, son. She did. She committed to you. That's why she _didn't_ go home with him. That's why she walked away and walked to you and told you the _truth_."

"Screw the truth! The truth sucks!"

Eric blinked and rubbed his brow. "Did you uh…you have a confrontation with that guy?" Eric asked because he was pretty sure that was the first thing he would have done himself, if he had been in Matt's shoes.

"Yeah."

"You uh…."

"- I broke his nose. I didn't put him in the hospital or anything like that, and he's not pressing charges."

"A'ight." Eric drummed his fingers on his desk. "Listen, I know how angry you are, and I know you're not going to forgive Julie today or tomorrow either. But you're going to have to forgive her eventually."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"Jackson. "

Matt didn't respond.

"You know what it was like to have your own parent's divorce. You know what that did to you, to your sense of security. You don't want that for your son. That boy is four years old. He's an innocent child. He didn't ask to be born. You and Julie brought him into this world. His happiness and his sense of security depends on his parents sticking together. Don't shake his little world."

"So what, just stay married for the sake of the kid? Is that what you would do? Stay married for Gracie if you caught Mrs. Coach - "

"- Yeah. Yeah I probably would, Matt," he said, "if she was sorry and willing to work on it. But I wouldn't just stay for Gracie. I'd stay for the sake of the good times we'd go on to share in the future. I know it doesn't seem like there could be any future good times at the moment, but if you work on it, there _will_ be."

"How am I supposed to trust her now?"

"You're not supposed to, son. She's going to have to _earn_ your trust back. But give her a _chance_ to earn it."

"I don't know. I just don't know."

"Well you think about your boy. Have you talked to him at all since they've been up here?"

"Yeah, a couple times. He's called me on Gracie's cell. He doesn't know we're fighting."

"The hell he doesn't, Matt. Kids aren't stupid. He knows _something_ is wrong. I put him to bed last night. When we did bedtime prayers, he prayed that mommy and daddy would be happy. And then he cried a little. Don't tell me he doesn't know."

"I have to go. I have to work."

"Matt – don't hang up. Matt – "

No response. Wearily, Eric put down his desk phone. It rang almost immediately. He jerked it up. "Matt?"

"Uh…is this Coach Taylor?"

"Yes it is."

"Hi, Coach Taylor. This is Coach Morris, the football coach over at Benjamin Middle School."

That was the school Gracie would soon be attending. Eric had never met Coach Morris. Back when he used to coach for high school, he sometimes went to the junior highs that fed into Pemberton to check out the up and coming players, but Benjamin didn't feed into Pemberton.

Coach Morris continued, "I just wanted to make sure you're aware that football is a contact sport."

"Say what now?"

"Football. It's a contact sport here at Benjamin. We don't play flag. We don't play touch. It's full on tackle."

"Uh…yeah."

"Do you know much about football?"

"I'm a _coach_," Eric said.

"I know. Of Braemore's girls' volleyball team."

"What? No! The football team! I'm head coach of the Bloodhounds. So, yeah, I know a little bit about football."

"Sorry. I thought you were a volleyball coach for some reason. Weren't you in the paper?"

"That's _Aaron_ Taylor. I'm _Eric_ Taylor." Coach Aaron Taylor was in the paper because this summer one of his players had died of heat exhaustion during an outdoor camp exercise, or at least that how they reported it. The truth was the girl had other health issues she hadn't disclosed to the coach, but that's how things got spun. Anything you can do to sensationalize things. Any time you can point fingers. Eric felt bad for the man.

"So you _did_ sign your daughter up to play?"

"Sign her up? What do you mean? "

"Well, your signature was on the permission form when she came to try-outs this morning. It looked a little…feminine. Which is why I called just to make sure."

Eric shifted his red and white cap down over his eyes and shook his head. "You let her try out?"

"I had to let her. And as far as putting her _on_ the team, I don't have a politically correct reason to say no. The girl can run, and she can throw, and she can catch, and she can jump. She can even kick. She understands _all_ the plays."

Despite his anger at Gracie's defiance, Eric felt a wave of pride swell up.

"The only thing she can't do," Coach Morris said, "is tackle a boy twice her size. Now most of the boys aren't bigger than her at this age, but some of them are. And I don't know what's going to happen when she gets tackled by one of these bigger boys."

Eric sighed. "She's gonna get up. That's what gonna happen."

"So you _did_ sing the permission form?"

"I'll give you a call back in a couple of days and let you know," Eric replied.

"Let me know whether you signed it or not?"

"When does summer training start for y'all?"

"Next Monday."

"A'ight. I'll let you know in a couple of days." Eric put down the phone. "Damn, Gracie," he muttered. "_Damn_." The last _damn_, though, got eaten up a little by his chuckle.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

"Hello. This is Coach Eric Taylor calling for Coach Clarke." Eric continued to walk toward his SUV as he spoke into his cell phone.

A cheerful voice came on the line: "Coach! So good to hear from you. It's been almost a year. "

"Yeah, Jess, well," he said as he unlocked his door, "you know how busy things get. How's Lance?"

"_Landry's_ doing well. He's finishing up his post-doctoral work this year, so he should finally be earning some real money soon. I think I've more than earned my putting-hubby-through degree."

The kid had gotten a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Texas A&M, if Eric recalled correctly, after finishing his B.A. at Rice a year early. He and Jess had gotten together at A&M after Jess had transferred there her junior year. They'd moved to Maryland for his post-doctoral work, where Jess had spent only one year as a quarterback coach at a Baltimore high school before being promoted to the head coaching position this season. Sure, she'd also been an assistant high school coach all throughout college, but Eric still found her speedy rise surprising.

"Are you going to have to move for his job?" Eric asked he climbed inside and cranked the engine just enough to roll down all the windows. It was only up to 83 at the moment, but it was humid. He swore it sometimes felt hotter here than it had in Texas, with all that stickiness in the air.

"Hell, no. I _just_ got this head coaching position, after six years of clawing my way up. I told him he's going to find something right here."

"Six years. Hell, it took me almost _sixteen_ before I was a head coach." He rested an arm on the open windowsill.

"Well, but your first head coaching job was _Dillon_. We're not exactly 5A."

"Still, quite the achievement." Eric waved out the window to one of his passing assistant coaches, who was headed to his own car. When the man was past, he said, "Tell me something…is it hard? You know, as a woman? Do you get a lot of backlash? Old boy stuff?"

She laughed. "Why are you asking me this, Coach?"

He sighed. "What do you think of a girl playing middle school football? When she's the only girl on the team?"

"Are we talking about Gracie now?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "We are."

"I don't know what I can tell you. Coaching and playing are two very different things. There's a couple of girls who have played here in Maryland. Not on my team, but for some competitors. Both were kickers though. And even then I heard there was some grumbling from the teams, and some flak from the public."

Eric wasn't sure what he had expected Jess to say. Half of him was dead set against letting Gracie play, and the other half was damn proud of his girl – not just of her ability in football, but of her determination and her courage in trying to make a place for herself where she might not be wanted. Gracie reminded him of Jess, in a way, and of Tami in another. In her occasional wry cynicism, Gracie reminded him of Tyra Colette, whom he hadn't seen since Jackson's christening. He'd come across a lot of strong women in his life, and he thought maybe he was in the process of raising the strongest one he'd ever met. It scared him a little.

"Middle school," Jess continued, "it might not be such a big deal. But if Gracie's looking at high school, and she's hoping to play _any_ position other than kicker…I mean …that _size_ difference…you know what I'm saying? And as a coach, I have to say – and the feminist in me _hates_ to say it, but as a _coach_… Boys need to learn to get along with other boys. You throw a girl on the team, and it changes that entire dynamic. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

"Sure. Why do you think I hesitated to let you be equipment manager?"

"That wasn't _on_ the team."

"You were a _part_ of the team, Jess. You know you were."

She was quiet for a while. "And do you feel like I messed up the team dynamic?"

"There were moments that were…challenging. I think maybe that had more to do with you being Vince's girlfriend, though. You hear from him lately?" The last Eric had heard, Vince had blown his knee out his junior year at UT-Austin. Eric had tried to stay in touch with the kid, but after a while, Vince had stopped returning his calls. Eric felt guilty for giving up; the kid seemed to be in a spiral of disillusionment.

"I've heard _of_ him from a mutual friend. He's in Dallas now. Working for some charity in the projects – they try to keep kids off the street through sports."

That was a relief to hear. Vince had some purpose in his life, then. Eric knew what it felt like, to have your purpose taken from you. When that had happened to him – when he couldn't play well anymore – he'd had to grope around blindly for some new purpose.

"How good is she?" Jess asked. "Gracie?"

He smiled. "Damn good. She could be the quarterback of this team."

"Well, you know, you can always put her in and then pull her if it doesn't work out."

He let his hand rest on his keys in the ignition. "Why don't you move to Pennsylvania and form a girls' tackle football league? I bet Lan – your husband- could get a good job here."

She laughed. "You know how hard I fought to coach high school. Not happening."

"Speaking of _Landry_," he paused and waited to see if she would correct him, "has Matt talked to him all lately? About anything?"

"What sort of thing?" Jess asked.

"I don't know…just…wondered. I gotta get going." He cranked the ignition, turned on the A/C, and started rolling up the windows. "We should meet near the border and do lunch sometime. Talk shop."

"I'd like that, Coach," she said. "_After_ football season, maybe?"

"Yeah, I hear you."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Julie had taken Gracie out yet again, and Jackson was sound asleep in the bedroom upstairs. It had cooled down to 69 tonight, so Tami and Eric fired up the hot tub. Tami now sighed and leaned her head against the rim of the tub, a few inches from where she'd set her glass of white wine. Eric eased a little closer and kissed her bare shoulder before sliding a finger beneath the strap of her bikini and easing it down. She smacked his hand playfully and slid the strap back up. "Stop it. The neighbors will see."

He nodded toward the fence, which was lined on the other side by trees. "How?"

"We're in public," she said.

"We're in our own backyard." He shook his head, sighed, and settled for sliding an arm around her waist instead. "You're such a prude."

She laughed as she leaned against him. "Says the man who tells me to be quiet so Gracie won't hear."

"That's different. Speaking of Gracie…she forged my signature and tried out for the Buckaneers."

"What?" Tami exclaimed as she drew back to look at him. "You seem surprisingly calm about it."

"We'll have to ground her for disobeying, of course, but I've been thinking…maybe we _should_ let her play."

Tami raised an eyebrow.

"I'm aware some of those boys are starting to go through puberty," he said, "but they're not going to be thinking about that in the heat of the game. You know, out there, it's about football. You're caught up in it. " He shrugged. "And they aren't bigger than Gracie yet, most of them. And she might get made fun of some for doing it, but she's tough, our girl." He smiled. "She's good, Tami. She's _damn_ good. The coach even said so."

Tami sighed. "I don't know. She could get _hurt_ doing that."

"Would you say that if she were our son?" he asked.

"Probably not," Tami admitted. "But I'd still _worry_ about it. I worried about it when _you_ were playing. I was kind of glad when we had a girl the first time. I knew I'd never had to worry about concussions and knee injuries and all that."

"I wish there was another option for her," Eric said. "But there really isn't. Not here. She's finished with football if she doesn't play at the middle school."

"What about high school, though?" Tami asked. "The size discrepancy then - "

"- that's three years away. We can have that discussion then. We're just deciding for _now_. And for now…I'm not sure I want to fight this battle. That girl is bound and determined, Tami. She's as stubborn as her mother. More, maybe."

Tami splashed water on him, and the droplets wound their way down the sinews of his shoulders and chest. "I am _not_ stubborn." She smiled. "Not very."

He laughed and pulled her through the bubbling water onto his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Sleep on it tonight," he said. "I need to tell the coach yes or no in a couple days."

Tami kissed him. "Okay," she murmured as she settled her head against his. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the water and the solid comfort of his body against hers.

"I talked to Matt."

Suddenly, she didn't feel so relaxed. "And?"

"He was angry, obviously. And I didn't get the sense that he's going to call Julie anytime soon."

"Did you tell – "

"- I told him what I told him, Tami. It's out of my hands. It's out of yours too, babe."

She slid off his lap and reached straight for her wine.

They sat for near an hour in the hot tub, talking and drinking. Occasionally, they'd slide out and sit on the rim when it got too hot.

"I worry about that girl, though." Eric admitted as he slid off the rim and back into the tub. "Her interests just aren't normal for a girl." He put a hand on Tami's foot, because she was still on the rim, and yanked her in.

Tami squealed as she splashed into the water. He steadied the wine she had nearly knocked over.

"Lord, Eric." She settled back against his chest. "Gracie has you for a father. Did you expect her not to be interested in football?"

"Julie never was."

"And that always bothered you a little, didn't it?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "But…I didn't think about the flip side. If she was _really_ interested. Like Gracie is."

By the time they were getting out of the hot tub for good and wrapping themselves in towels, they had reached an agreement about Gracie.

[*]

The next morning, Eric approached his daughter and said, in his best coach's voice, "Gracie. C'mere. I need to speak to you." Then he opened the door and motioned to the back porch.

His daughter threw down her pencil, rose from the kitchen table where she was doing summer homework (Eric had never had _summer_ homework in his life), and followed him outside.

There on the deck he crossed his arms over his chest. "You lied to me."

"What?"

"You forged my signature on a permission slip."

"Oh." She shifted on her feet.

"You didn't think I'd find out?"

She smiled weakly. She seemed sufficiently nervous.

"What do you think I should do about that?" he demanded.

"I don't think my opinion matters much to you, honestly," she said, looking at him directly now.

"Well, it does."

She snorted. "Then I don't think you should do _anything_ about it."

"I think you should be grounded for two weeks."

Gracie frowned.

"No friends, no movies, no riding anywhere at all –except to and from summer training."

Her frown shifted into a hesitant, uncertain, half smile. "Summer training?"

He held up a finger. "One season. We give it one season, and see how it goes. I reserve the right to pull you at any time, though, if those boys get frisky."

Gracie laughed and threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you, Daddy! You won't regret it."

When she let go of him finally, he jerked his head toward the front yard. "Want to toss the ball a bit?" As they walked through the house to the front yard, he put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm proud of you, sweetpea. Real proud. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, I know. But it doesn't kill you to _say_ it either, does it?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

The wooden basement stairs creaked as Julie made her way down. She set a glass of sweet sun tea on the ping pong table. Dad had apparently dusted the old relic off once Gracie turned six. She looked at the table a little sadly, remembering the times she'd talked to her father over it, when the future was still a blank slate, and the most important man her life seemed to love her unconditionally.

She leaned back against the table as she watched Gracie do another pull-up on the home gym Dad had set up. She wasn't sure if this basement was supposed to be Dad's man cave or Gracie's playroom – it seemed to have plenty of signs of both. "Thirsty?" she asked.

Gracie swung back and dropped on her feet on the unfinished floor. "Thanks," she said, almost suspiciously. As she came over and grabbed the glass, her cell phone, which she'd left face-up on the table, rang. The name Matthew Saracen flashed on the screen. Julie looked at the cell phone and looked at Gracie. "He calls to talk to Jackson," Gracie explained.

Julie grabbed the ringing phone. Gracie took the glass of tea and clamored up the stairs.

"Hey, Matt," Julie answered. "We _need_ to talk."

There was silence.

"I'm so sorry about what happened. We need to get in counseling and work through this."

"What _happened_? Like it just _happened_?"

A surge of defensiveness swelled up instinctively within her. She swallowed it down. "I'm sorry for what I _did_."

"When are you coming back to Savanah?"

"You miss me?" she asked hopefully.

"I miss my _son_. I want to see my _son_."

She couldn't suppress her instinctive self-defense mechanism now. "Why? You saw so little of him when we were there. You were always working."

"That's not fair! I took him fishing every Saturday. I picked him up from preschool every Friday and took him out for ice cream."

"Yeah, the two weekends a month you were home."

"You never give me credit for how much I help out! I have to earn a living, Julie. I have a _career_. And I'm trying to make a name for myself as an artist too. A little support would be nice!"

"A little support for me would be nice too!"

"Yeah, well the difference between you and me is that when I don't get a little support, I don't _cheat_ on you and go _make out_ with some woman! I stay loyal! I stick it through even if you're not perfect! I've always stuck it through."

"Always? Like when you drove off to Chicago and didn't tell me?"

"That was ten years ago! We weren't married!"

Julie choked down the tears that were starting to well up. "Matt, we need to do something. We need – "

"- Whenever I was fishing with Jackson, you told me you were going to the movies with _Kim_, but you were with _him_."

She'd admitted as much to Matt, when he'd fired question after question at her that night she'd told him she was unhappy in the marriage and feeling tempted to have an affair. _How long? How often? How many e-mails? How many phone calls? How many texts? Do you love him? Where were your hands when you were kissing?_ _Where were his hands?_

"You lied to me!" He yelled through the phone. "I believed you! I believed you were where you said you were. What else have you been lying about?"

"Nothing. Nothing!"

"I have to go." His voice cracked. "I'm calling Jackson tomorrow. I only want to talk to Jackson."

[*]

Eric had been in to the office early this morning, and he was able to pop over to Benjamin Middle School to watch his daughter's practice before returning to Braemore. It was good to be the man in charge again. He worked hard, but he no longer worked inefficiently.

Eric stood at the sidelines beside Coach Morris and watched the assistant coach run the tam through some plays. Afternoon practice in late August would have been foolish in Texas. Someone would have died of heat exhaustion, but it was only 83 at the moment.

They'd made Gracie a center. "Hey, Coach," Eric said. "Don't you think she'd be better used as quarterback?"

"I need a good center," Coach Morris replied. "It's going to be a long day for my offense if I don't."

"Yeah, but, Gracie, she knows the plays like the back of her hand." He nodded down the field. "37 looks more like a running back to me. I'm puzzled as to why you have him on QB."

Coach Morris cleared his throat. "You used to coach high school, didn't you Coach Taylor?"

"Most of my career." He'd only coached college one full season, at Temple. TMU had been a partial season, and he'd just started at Braemore.

"You remember what it was like to have that one parent? You know the one who's always on the sidelines telling you how to do your job even though he isn't with the team day in and day out and doesn't know his boys like you do? That guy who becomes kind of a distraction to the team by hovering around all the time and drives you up the wall as a coach?"

"Oh, yeah," Eric muttered. At Pemberton, it had been Bobby Valentine, but nobody ever quite rivaled Joe McCoy.

Coach Morris crossed his arms over his chest, titled his head toward Eric, and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh. Ah." Eric winced. "Well…uh…I'll just be up in the bleachers over there."

"Good. They're pretty comfortable as far as bleachers go. New as of last year."

Eric made his way to the stands.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

Julie's parents told her she couldn't stay in Philadelphia until the end of the summer. She had to go back to Savannah and talk to Matt _in person_. She reluctantly agreed, though she was afraid of the confrontation.

When she arrived at the house, she found his dresser drawers empty and many of his belongings missing, but there was a light on in the shed he had turned into a studio. She called her friend Kim and asked her to take Jackson for a while. Kim's son, who was a full year younger than Jackson, played well with him. The two boys were at pretty much the same maturity level, which worried Julie, but she was glad Jackson had a good friend.

When Matt opened the door to the studio, his white T-shirt was splattered with paint, as were his fingers. The shirt pulled tightly across his muscular chest, and she was reminded how good looking her husband was – much better looking than the fellow teacher she had kissed - but the average man had become attractive through the attention he had paid her at a time when she felt starved for attention. Matt had asked, _Why him? What does he have that I don't have? _It wasn't money. It wasn't looks. It was simply that Paul had been fully there when Matt only half was.

Julie understood that now. For a short time, she had thought maybe she was falling in love with Paul, and she questioned whether she had ever truly loved Matt. But time away from both, and conversations with her mother, and a little perspective had made the picture plain. She loved her husband. She missed him. He was her first love, and she wanted him to be her last. She wanted to fix this, and not just for Jackson.

"You're back," he said.

"Did you…move out?"

"I moved in here."

She peered around him and saw the cot in the corner, the suitcases, the small card table with a bowl and spoon. "You don't have to do that."

"We don't have a guest bedroom. Just Jackson's room and our room." It was a two-bedroom, two-bathroom rambler. They hadn't wanted to buy a bigger house, because Matt was saving up to become a partner in the gallery.

"What about a bathroom?" Why was she asking about logistics? He'd moved out. _Moved out_. Her brain was refusing to process what that meant.

"I'll come in the house when I need to. We don't have to tell Jackson yet. Until it's final."

Julie leaned against the door frame for support. "Until what's final?"

"I mean, until we decided whether or not we're going to divorce."

"Are you considering it?"

"Of course I am."

"But you'll go to marriage counseling?"

"Not now. I don't want to now. I need…" He shook his head. "I don't know what I need. I'm sleeping here for now. You can have the house with Jackson. We'll all eat dinner together twice a week and be polite to each other." They only ate dinner together three times a week usually anyway, Julie thought, and that was when he was in town. It would be nothing new to Jackson. "I'll do the stuff I usually do with him. But I don't want to see you any more than that. Not now. You just tell him I'm working when I'm not around."

"I guess that will be easy for him to believe." She bit her bottom lip. That wasn't going to help. She began to realize what was happening, what all this might mean. "So…this is like a separation? You're not…you're not going to see anyone, are you?" She had a strong fear he might retaliate with something more than a single make-out session. She knew women were interested in them. There was one local artist, about twelve years older than Matt, who was always stopping by the gallery. They joked about it at first, how obvious she was…called her the "painting cougar" (she often wore tight, black dresses too, so it worked on more levels than one). That was probably over a year ago, though. Julie hadn't heard Matt joke about her in a long time. Maybe she'd ceased to be a joke to him. She was fairly attractive, for her age, and God knew she was willing.

"We're still married," he answered to her relief. "Are you going to see _him_?"

"No. I told him it could never happen again. That we couldn't even be alone in a room. You know that."

"You'll see him when school starts, though. Every day."

"I sent in my resignation. I'm going to do temp work – office work for the next year. And I'll try to get a teaching job at a different school next year." It was her mother who had suggested changing schools to avoid temptation and reassure Matt of her commitment. "I want you to know I'm serious about fixing this."

"You quit?" he asked with disbelief.

"Yeah."

He seemed almost literally to soften, as though a bit of the rigidness went out of his muscles. "Where's Jackson?"

"With Kim."

He put hand on the door. "Tell me when he's home. I want to spend the rest of the day with him at the park. It's my day off." His day off from the gallery, but not his day off from the studio. He often painted on his days off, sometimes most of the day.

"Can I come in? Can we talk some more?"

"I have to work." He closed the door.

Julie stood there for a moment, hugging herself, the sticky, Georgia heat descending like the weight that was sinking her heart.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

Because Matt wouldn't agree to go to marriage counseling, Julie went to counseling by herself. The therapist dug deep, deeper than was comfortable. The woman made her think about _why_ Matt may have been working so much, if perhaps he felt neglected himself, if Jackson, and Julie's worries about him, had somehow become the center of her world.

"I'm certainly not saying this is all your fault," the therapist told Julie. "But you can only work on _yourself_. You can't work on him. He has to work on himself."

"What if he doesn't?"

"Either he'll divorce you, or he'll come back to you. The first is not your decision, but in the case of the second…if he comes back and doesn't want to work on the marriage, just expects to keep going on as before…you're going to have to decide whether or not you can do that – whether, in your case, an unhappy marriage is better than divorce."

Divorce wouldn't make her happy either. So, what, she got to choose between one unhappiness or another? How fair was that?

Julie sometimes wished Matt would just send her divorce papers. Then, at least, she wouldn't _have_ to decide. This in-between, this purgatory was such an awful place, that she thought it must be worse than hell. At least when you were in hell, you _knew_ where you were going to be tomorrow. You could start accepting the place.

Julie also took Jackson to a psychologist for an evaluation. The psychologist agreed that he seemed developmentally delayed and suggested that he may be at risk for a development disorder, but he felt that it was too early to make a confident diagnosis. He suggested Julie get tutoring for him, help him find an activity he loved to boost his confidence, see that he continued to interact with kids his age, and otherwise "kept an eye on things." He also told her that she should try to keep things as amicable as possible with "the father." Julie cringed to hear her first love, her high school sweetheart, her husband of seven years referred to that way – as "the father." But he was fast becoming "the father," wasn't he?

When Julie told Matt about the trip to the psychologist, he said, "See, I told you that you were overreacting."

"Didn't you hear? He's at risk for a developmental disorder."

"You're getting him tutoring though?"

Julie sighed. "I just…I just want you to acknowledge my worries."

"Acknowledged. You're worried. But that's _not_ what you want. You want me to freak out as much as you are. But a kid needs balance, right? He doesn't need two parents freaking out about him."

Since the "separation," Matt had actually become more involved in Jackson's life. Maybe he felt guilty about living in the studio and contemplating a permanent separation of the family, or maybe he was doing some quiet work on his own Julie knew nothing about, but he made more time for Jackson. He worked fewer hours. In October, he asked to take the boy on a four-day camping weekend, and Julie agreed.

Restless, upset, and not quite sure what to do with herself, Julie ran to the one person she felt had never judged her, even when he had disagreed with her. She flew to El Paso, rented a car, and began the drive to Flowering Ash Vineyards, where Grandpa Taylor lived with his second wife.

Julie thought Flowering Ash was a strange name for a winery, but Grandpa's wife Katrina had named the place after one of the southwestern native plants that lined the scenic path to the bed and breakfast. Apparently Katrina got a lot of compliments on the name, but it made Julie think the wine would have too much sediment.

As she drove past brownish fields and dusty landscape, she tried to imagine a winery thriving in this land, but she pulled into the place in the shadow of the mountains, and saw the vines weaving in row upon row. She crunched over the pebbled road, passed the six-bedroom bed and breakfast the couple had opened together before they were even married, and parked at the main house.


	13. Chapter 13

Eric stopped before the desk of Tami's new secretary. He glanced over and saw his wife's office door was shut fast. "I need to see Tami," he told the girl. Well, she was probably twenty-five or twenty-six. Not really a _girl_. But at fifty, Eric had trouble of thinking of anyone under thirty as an adult.

"Do you have an appointment?" the girl asked.

"What? No. Just tell her I'm here. Buzz me in or whatever."

"And you are?"

He stared at her with disbelief. "Her husband."

"Oh! Sorry Coach Taylor! I didn't recognize you without the hat and sunglasses."

He was in a button down shirt and khakis. He'd gone for a run after practice and then showered and changed. He was trying to exercise more these days, because of his high blood pressure. He didn't want to go on meds. He was going to feel damn old if he had to start taking those blood pressure pills. He'd told the doctor to give him six months to get his habits under control and, then, if it was still high, he'd take the damn things. His hat he'd left in the truck, and his sunglasses he was pretty sure Coach Kinney had stolen. There was something wrong with that guy. Eric had inherited his staff and he was going to have to make some changes to it. He liked his offensive coordinator, but the quarterback coach had to go. He had a guy in mind, but the man wasn't going to come over with the salary on offer. The Bloodhounds didn't have much of a budget for coaches, and no matter how much Eric pled with the powers that be, it didn't look like he was getting one.

"You're actually pretty good-looking without all that," the secretary said as she picked up the phone. "Now it makes more sense." She pressed a button. "Your husband here to see you….Okay."

"What makes more sense?" he asked as she hung up the phone.

"I mean….your wife. You and Dean Taylor."

"Uh-huh." He pointed to the door. "I can go in now?"

She nodded.

When Eric got in to Tami's office, he shut the door, slid into the formal, brown leather chair across from her desk, rested one his arms on each of the arms, closed his eyes, and sighed. She leaned forward, her arms crossed on her desk. "You come for an admissions interview, sweetheart?"

He opened his eyes. She was gorgeous today, her hair billowing over the shoulders of her tight, pale blouse. He smirked. "Admission to what?"

"Good Lord."

He sat forward a little. "I came to take you out to dinner. We don't have to rush home. Gracie called me and said she's eating at some friend's house."

"Alex?"

"Ah…no…new friend actually. Some guy from the team."

Tami raised an eyebrow. "Who? And what did she say about this guy?"

"Jake something. He's on the team. Linebacker. 7th grade." He caught her expression. "Ah…no…no…she's not interested in him like that. You know how she is. All her friends are boys. Always have been."

"I know, hon, but she's in middle school now. Thing are going to start to change."

He shook his head.

"I worry about it a little," Tami admitted, sitting back in her oversized office chair. "Her not having a single female friend. When things start to shift…and boys don't want to hang out with her _that_ way anymore….because they want to hang out with her a _different_ way…she might feel a little friendless."

"Are _you_ saying boys and girls can't be _just_ friends?" Eric asked.

"Gracie's a pretty girl, Eric. She doesn't know it half the time, or care, but she is. Personally, when I was unattached, I never had a guy friend who was _just_ a friend. If they know you're available, they always seem to want…more. But I know it can be done. I know other people have done it. I just don't know what that's like. And I just think Gracie needs at least one or two _female_ friends. That's all."

He shrugged. "Well, we can't pick her friends for her." He waved a finger. "But I can pick her _boy_friends."

Tami laughed. "How are you going to do that, sugar?"

"There's an interview process," he said, standing.

"You expect them to submit portfolios?"

He jerked his head toward the door. "Come on. Let me take my lovely wife out." He smiled. "Gracie says she's staying after dinner to study for their math test. We might have the house to ourselves for a bit."

Tami rose and grabbed her satchel from under the desk and started putting files in it. "I thought you said he was in 7th grade. They're in the same math class?"

"Well, you know…she's in that pre-algebra class. Because you _insisted_ she take it."

"She's good at math." Tami slung her satchel over her shoulder. "It's her one really good subject. We ought to encourage her to excel in it."

He put a hand on the small of her back as they headed out of her office. "So Jake is going to be in Algebra in 8th grade," she said. "A year earlier than required. So he's intelligent, this kid? That's a good sign."

Eric's jaw tensed. "I told you. She doesn't like him like _that_."

"How do you know?" She turned to lock her office door.

"Because she's nowhere near ready for that."

She slipped an arm around his waist and kissed his check. "You mean _you're_ nowhere ready for that, sugar."


	14. Chapter 14

Grandpa Taylor hugged Julie and showed her to the guest bedroom, where she deposited her suitcase. When they were settled in the breakfast nook of the "main house" (which was actually nothing but a one-story, three-bedroom rambler), he offered her coffee. Julie had expected him to suggest wine, but he already had a pot of decaf on, and she accepted.

Julie was surprised to find that, for the first time since she'd known him, Grandpa actually looked close to his real age. He still seemed surprisingly strong for seventy, but his face was lined and weary.

"Where's Katrina?" Julie asked.

"Resting," he said.

"You still cook breakfast at the B&B?"

"I don't manage the B&B anymore. We hired someone else to do that. We hired someone else to do most of the things." He sounded a little sad about that. He drummed his fingers against the kitchen table. He seemed strangely irritated. "What brings you here, Julie?"

"I can't visit my grandpa?" she asked, half joking, but half hesitantly. She hadn't called him until her plane landed. She'd just assumed he would be happy to see her, but maybe she'd interrupted his plans.

"Anytime. But you never do it suddenly like this."

Julie opened the flood gates and let loose all her troubles with Matt. As she was trailing off, she noticed that Grandpa seemed a little distracted, not as attentive as he usually was toward her.

"So he works too much," he said when she trailed off. "So you felt neglected and kissed some guy you shouldn't have. Life is short. You two need to stop being so self-absorbed and just get your shit together."

Julie gasped. Grandpa did not swear. Ever. Maybe in front of Dad. But not in front of Mom, or Julie, or Gracie, or his wife. And Grandpa always dispensed sage advice to her peppered with at least a few notes of understanding. He didn't say things like that. "Grandpa! What is wrong with you?"

He looked off at the rustic, country kitchen behind Julie, where metal pots hung above the stove. "Katrina has cancer. She started chemo last week. The prognosis isn't good."

Instinctively, Julie's shot out her hand and grasped her grandfahter's, which was on the table. "Oh, Grandpa."

"She's ten years younger than me. I wasn't supposed to outlive this wife." He breathed in through his nose and steadied his voice. "Remember when your grandmother died? You were maybe six? You crawled in my lap, and you told me you were going to help me cry. And you did. You helped."

"Maybe I could help you cry now," Julie suggested.

"I don't want to cry. I want to smash something."

That sounded strangely inviting. Julie was angry herself. Angry about the separation. Angry with herself for falling to temptation, and angry with Matt for not being there when she needed him. "Then I'll help you smash something."

Grandpa Taylor took her to the depths of the winery where they stored the barrels. It was slightly cool. He had an employee roll one of the smaller barrels to the center of the earthen floor. "We tested them recently. This one's turned." He handed her a crowbar, and they took turns whacking it like a piñata. Eventually, it cracked, and the wine spilled out, turning almost black as it soaked into the ground. The employee returned just as the last plank gave way.

"I hope you don't expect me to clean that up?" he said. "It's not in my job description."

"What if I pay you double for today?" Grandpa asked.

"Then I suppose I could revise my job description."

They sat on the deck of the winery next, a bottle open between them, a second one on deck to be opened soon. It was almost noon by now.

"I'm still praying for a miracle," Grandpa said. "Sometimes these things do go into remission."

"I'm still praying for a miracle, too," Julie said. "Sometimes marriages do heal."

Grandpa leaned on the crowbar and looked at her.

She hugged herself. It felt cooler than it had when they first stepped in. "Except…I don't think Matt's used to seeing any other solution but divorce. I'm used to seeing my parents…you know…toghether. And you and grandma never had any marriage problems either."

Grandpa let out a sharp laugh. "I'm sure your parents have had marriage problems. And your grandmother and I…we were on the verge of divorce at least twice."

"Really?"

He nodded his head back toward the staircase that led to the tasting room. "Let's share a bottle."


	15. Chapter 15

Tami kissed Eric's neck before settling her head on the hard pillow of his chest. He'd been exercising a lot lately to bring downs his blood pressure, and lifting weights with his daughter, and he was in better shape than he had been five years ago. "That was rather pleasant," she said.

"Rather pleasant? Where are we? In Victorian England? That was _hot_."

She laughed. "It was the best we've had in years." She felt him tense beneath her and peered up at the downturned line of his mouth, the frown she knew so well by now. "Take it as a compliment, Eric, the way it was intended. I'm just happy to know we've still got it after all these years."

He rolled with her onto his side and buried a hand in her hair. "Well, you'll always have _it_, babe." He kissed her, pulled her against himself, and closed his eyes.

"You're going to sleep, aren't you? Eric, it's _early_."

His eyes lazily fluttered open. "I took you to dinner and listened to you talk for an hour. It's not like I haven't paid any attention to you."

"Mhmmm…so you could get laid."

He yawned. "Believe it or not, Tami, but I don't do it just to get laid. I actually _enjoy_ spending time with you. I like you."

"You do?"

He murmured and kissed her. "I do. The last thirty years would have been kind of torturous if I didn't. Even with the fantastic monthly sex."

She slapped his shoulder. "You are _not_ that deprived. You get it three times a week at least."

He laughed. "More like once."

"At _least_ twice."

"I love you." It was his rapid fire I-love-you. His "I'm done with this conversation" I-love–you. She watched him close his eyes again. In a few seconds, his arm was jerking slightly in a sleep-dance.

Tami slid out from under him, dressed, and went to turn on the porch light and peer out of the front window.

It was five more minutes before Jake's father's car pulled up. Tami had hoped to meet the boy, but he wasn't with them. Gracie hopped out of the car and waved to the Dad. Tami opened the door and took a step down the stoop, expecting to introduce herself to the father and chat with him, but he was already backing out of the driveway. He waved to her and headed on.

The lack of friendliness had been Eric's greatest complaint about east coast metropolitan living. Tami was almost glad he was asleep, or he'd be muttering, "That would _never_ have happened in Texas."

Even after nine years here, there were some things Eric hadn't gotten used to. And sometimes Tami had to agree with him. She'd always thought the Texas motto, "the friendship state," was a bit laughable. Other states had stirring mottos, like Latin words that meant "Ever thus to tyrants" or "While I breathe, I hope." Even her new state of Pennsylvania had dubbed itself with bold words, the land of "virtue, liberty, and independence," but Texas…Texas was "the friendship state." She'd come to understand, though, that friendliness was no small thing. It could change the course of your day, the way you were greeted at the checkout line, or in the parking lot, or in your own driveway.

Next time she'd grab his door handle and he'd _have_ to talk to her.

When they were in the house, Gracie asked, "Where's dad?"

"Sleeping," Tami answered as they entered the kitchen.

"It's eight thirty."

Tami poured herself a glass of wine. "You know how hard he's been working, new team and all." The Bloodhounds had lost their first game and their second, which was to be expected. But they'd won the third, against a decent team, too, which was actually a surprise, and for the first time, football became a truly hot topic on the almost-ivy-but-not-an-ivy campus.

"Not as hard as he worked last season at Temple," Gracie said as she filled a glass of water from the fridge.

Tami sipped her wine. "So…how was your evening with Jake?"

Gracie shrugged. "Okay."

"So he's a linebacker? 7th grade? In pre-algebra with you? Does he have any other classes with you?"

Gracie turned slowly to look at her mother. "Did you run a background check on him or something?"

"No, your dad told me."

Gracie brought the cup to her lips and sipped.

"Are you going to study with him again sometime?"

"Maybe." Gracie's cup clinked on the counter as she set it down. "Why are you being weird about this? It's not like I've never had a guy friend. Alex is my best friend."

"I know." Tami slid a finger up the stem of her wine glass. "Maybe we should invite them all over for dinner. Jake and his parents."

"Why?"

"They had you over for dinner today."

"We just ate pizza. Jake and I ate pizza in the kitchen while we studied. His mom was out at some bookclub, and his dad was in his home office. It's not like we sat down at the dining room table and they grilled me. Is that what you want to do?"

"I like to know your friend's parents, Gracie. I know Alex's mom. It's perfectly reasonable." She plucked up her wine glass. "I'm going to watch my DVRed episodes of Nashville."

"How can that show possibly still be on? It's so awful. How could it have lasted so many years?"

"It has good music," Tami insisted.

"It's a total soap opera. I can't believe you watch that." Gracie shook her head as she put her glass in the sink. "I'm going to bed early. Big math test tomorrow."


	16. Chapter 16

They were on their second bottle of wine, which they were savoring on the balcony that was attached to the tasting room. Grandpa held his glass up, tilted it, and examined the liquid. "We opened this a little early. But Sangiovese usually does well in the hot Texas climate."

"It's fine," Julie said.

He put the glass down. He'd been telling her how her marriage problems were hardly unique, even among marriages that last decades. "So I had the second job when I was in the AFL," he continued. "I had this fantasy I was going to get rich, buy my own team one day."

"The way Matt's working to buy a share in the gallery."

Grandpa laughed. "Well, that's at least a realistic goal. Teams were cheaper back then, but mine was still a pretty absurd fantasy. I was only making about $26,000 a year playing football."

"That's it!" Julie exclaimed.

"Well, adjusted for inflation…that's over $150,000 a year now, but, yeah, nothing like the million plus these players make today." He shrugged. "So in the off season, and sometimes even in the on season, I was busy with other things. I was slowly working toward an M.B.A and working on some business propositions on the side, and, the long and short of it is I was hardly ever home. I travelled for games – Betty didn't want to tote a little kid around for that. Besides, she had a part-time job as a nurse. She hadn't quit that yet. She couldn't just leave anytime she wanted. I travelled for business. She was worried about me falling asleep on the road in the off-season, and she was worried about the temptations in the on-season – sometimes…nothing like today, but sometimes there were still…uh…"

"Groupies?" Julie asked.

"Something like that."

"You didn't cheat on her, did you?" She felt guilty almost as soon as she heard her own accusatory tone. Her initial reaction at the possibility was judgment and horror, and yet she had toyed with starting an affair herself. _This must be how Matt feels_, she thought. _This judgment and horror. How can we ever reconcile?_

"No," Grandpa said decisively. "That was the one way I wasn't a shitty husband."

Julie grinned to hear him swear. He was getting lax in his old age. Her grin faded. Did that mean she was a shitty wife? She _hadn't_ had the affair, though. She'd only made out a little. She'd _stopped_ it. She'd turned around. She and Matt should still have a chance, shouldn't they?

"But she was afraid I might," Grandpa continued, "because she and I didn't spend a lot of time together, and she felt less beautiful after she had the baby. She was like a single mother, those first years of Eric's life."

"You said you almost got divorced?"

"I came home from the road one day, and her dresser drawers were empty. Eric's toys were gone. My wife and son were _gone_. She was just at her brother's house, so it didn't take me long to find her. We fought. She cried. She said she was sorry, she just needed help from her sister-in-law, that she wasn't planning to leave me. Anyway…she went back home, and I didn't learn my lesson right away. She got pregnant again, and I went back on the road for another year. But I thought about it, about how miserable she was, about how much I'd taken her for granted. So I decided to quit football and just concentrate on business. A _local_ business. Almost no travel. And things got better. They got...they were _good_. Until our daughter died."

"Was that the second time you almost got divorced?"

He nodded and sipped his wine. The sun had set in glorious hues over the mountains, and someone who worked at the winery had come and plugged in a bunch of little white lights that weaved through the awning that covered the deck. They'd chosen a lovely location for the winery, even if the landscape of El Paso was generally stark. A few customers sat around the deck as well, but it was a weekday, and not crowded. Apparently they had live music on Fridays and Saturdays – classical guitar, of course, knowing Grandpa's wife – sold finger foods and wine by the glass, and drew quite a crowd.

"That time I was the one who thought about leaving," Grandpa said. "She got really depressed. We didn't…she wasn't…uh…affectionate toward me. She was drunk a lot. I couldn't trust her to really do much of anything around the house. It _all_ fell to me."

Julie blinked. That was not the grandmother she had known, then one who had baked cookies with her and made her handmade dresses. Julie had only faint memories of her grandmother, who had died when she was young, but they were all pleasant, all active.

"Your grandmother was basically a single mother the first years of Eric's life," Grandpa continued, "and I was basically a single father his teenage years. And it was hard, Julie. Single parenting is hard. Make this thing work with Matt, because doing it alone is harder than you think."

Julie swallowed. "But…I _feel_ like a single parent sometimes already. I have for the past year or two. That's why I…" _Stop_ she told herself. _No excuses. Take ownership._ That's what her parents had told her. Even her counselor had told her that.

"At least he's providing. When there's an emergency, you can rely on him. You don't have to figure out who to turn to. His son knows he has a father who is part of the family. Matt's probably done more than your realize, more than you appreciate."

Julie didn't look at her grandpa. Instead she reached for the bottle. There was only half a glass left, which she found odd, because she thought she'd only had one from this bottle, and only two from the last. Yet grandpa did not appear the least bit inebriated. She wondered how long he'd been hitting the wine hard, if it was since Katrina's diagnosis, or before.

Grandpa motioned to the guy who was running the tasting bar at the moment, who had just brought a glass to a patron. "John," he called as he pointed to the empty bottle, "Syrrah this time." He looked at Julie. "That one does pretty well in Texas too. It's cold sensitive, especially when it's young." He tapped his hand on the light oak tabletop. "Matt needs to be a more involved husband. I'm not saying he doesn't. He needs an epiphany, like I had. But…maybe a good old fashioned fight would have been a better way to give it to him than sticking your tongue down another man's throat. "

"Grandpa!" She was surprised more by his word choice than by his directness.

"Julie!" he exclaimed back. "I mean…Julie…_damn_."

He sounded so much like her father when he said that. In some ways, they were so different, yet in others, so alike that she wondered why they'd never had a good relationship, at least not until the last ten years, when they seemed to have gradually grown closer. Mom said Grandpa could be critical, but he'd rarely been that way with Julie, and she remembered him giving constant little compliments to Grandma, kissing her on the cheek, laughing, telling her he loved her. Maybe Grandpa was a different man at different times, with different people. That could happen, Julie supposed. Matt had seemed a different man when she'd first fallen in love with him…though he'd been a boy, then, really.

"I know." She practically groaned the words.

She forced herself to smile when John brought an open bottle of Syrrah on the table top and poured a glass for each of them.

Grandpa pulled out his cell phone as John left. He almost dropped it. It was the only sign he gave of being slightly buzzed. "What's Matt's cell phone number?"

"Why?" Julie asked.

"I'm going to have a Matt chat, of course."

Julie laughed. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Give me his number," Grandpa insisted.

Reluctantly, she did, and he programmed it into his phone. "But at least wait until you're sober," she plead.

"I don't get drunk," he insisted. "I never have, never will."

"Uh huh….you just had six and a half glasses of wine."

"Over an hour and a half, Julie. With cheese and crackers and prosciutto."

She shrugged. "Okay," she said. "But wait until morning. He's probably putting Jackson to bed right now. It usually takes almost an hour. He has to read him stories and stuff."

Grandpa slipped his phone back into his pocket. "An _hour_, huh? Matt doesn't do anything to help, huh?"

"Well, when he's _home_. I put Jackson to bed five nights a week." She watched Grandpa raise the wine to his lips. Dad had told her once that Grandpa didn't drink most of his life because his own father had been an abusive drunk. Dad had told her that, ironically, when he himself was drunk. They'd gone out together two nights before her wedding, a daddy-daughter date, and Dad had gotten surprisingly sloshed. She'd learned a lot of things that night about the family history she'd never known. "Seriously, have you been drinking a lot since Katrina's diagnosis?"

"What does it matter?" he replied. "I don't think I'm going to kill myself before she dies. I'll still be competent to bury her."

"Grandpa…." She didn't know what else to say. So she just joined him in drinking the wine.


	17. Chapter 17

When Tami crawled into bed, Eric rolled over and draped an arm over her. She assumed it was an instinctive move he'd made in his sleep until he kissed the single bare spot on her neck that hadn't been masked by her hair. Next he went for the earlobe. She smiled and squirmed. "Going for two, Coach? I thought you were asleep."

"I was dreaming about you."

It was amazing how, after so many years of familiarity, after so many frustrated gruntings and petty grumblings had fallen from his lips, the sound of his voice could still thrill her. He had to apply it in just the right way, at a particular level, with the necessary dash of huskiness – and he had to say the right things, too. But after three decades, he'd learned what that tone was and what those words were.

"And was I ten years younger in your dream?" she asked.

"Nah. You were ten years older. And more beautiful than ever."

She laughed and turned in his arms and accepted his kiss. "It's midnight," she said.

He slid a hand beneath her t-shirt and made lazy, tender circles across her flesh. "What were you doing up so late?" His voice had lost its deep edge and sounded slightly sleepy, but her flesh was responding to his touch now.

"Watching Nashville."

"That awful show's still on?" He slid a leg between hers. "What did you do? Pause all the scenes with Declan?"

"Deacon."

He slid her shirt up to her breasts and kissed her stomach. "I don't care what his name is," he said between kisses, which trailed downward as he hooked his fingers into the edges of her panties, "as long as you come to _our_ bed hot."

She put a palm flat on the top of his head and pushed him down another inch, until his mouth reached the perfect spot.

**[FNL]**

When Grandpa and Julie came into the main house, they were both giggling. It was weird to hear Grandpa giggle. Here was this 6'4" man – not as muscular in his old age as he'd once been, but still big – giggling like a school girl.

"Shhhhhhh!" he told her, an unsteady finger to his lips, "Katriana is slee-" He stopped as they entered the kitchen and he saw his wife, in a pink, silk bathrobe, reaching for a cup from an open cupboard. "Darling," he said, as he made his way past the a now whistling kettle, which he switched off after first turning the gas up instead of down, "let me get that for you. Don't strain yourself."

"James, I'm not a complete invalid. I can handle the weight of a mug. And you're clearly in no condition to be holding fragile objects." She set the mug she had pulled down on the counter top and plopped a tea bag inside. "Hello, Julie," she said as she poured hot water in the cup. Steam rose and curled its way toward the ceiling. "It's a pleasure to see you again."

Julie smiled instead of speaking . She was unsure of her voice partly because she was tipsy and partly because she had only recently learned this woman was dying of cancer. What did you say to someone in that situation? What could be said?

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Katrina asked.

"Uh…sure." Julie didn't want a cup of tea, but it seemed rude to refuse. Grandpa was sitting at the table, so she took the seat opposite him. He looked at her and laughed.

Katrina opened a small container and began to spoon some herbs into a bag.

"Don't give Julie the _special_ tea!" Grandpa exclaimed.

"James, this is just cinnamon herbal tea. I'm not trying to get your granddaughter high. Clearly you've already gotten her drunk."

When Julie had the warm cup between her hands, she looked at Katrina, who had sat in the chair next to Grandpa. The woman, who had always possessed a dignified and lively appearance whenever Julie had seen her before, looked weary and no younger than Grandpa. Julie tried to determine whether or not her hair might be a wig.

She wondered if she became terminally ill, if Matt would drink two bottles of wine, and stumble his way home, and beg her not to trouble herself with the dishware. She wondered if he would weep, or if he would feel a sense of relief. At least then a decision would have been made about whether the relationship would end, and he wouldn't have to be the one to make it.

Grandpa had his arm on the back of Katrina's chair now. She was smiling at him somewhat indulgently, and he was smiling back, his eyes bright.

He'd loved Julie's grandmother, she was certain of that, but he loved this woman too. Could you do that? Could you have a second love that was just as real and as true as your first? Julie's experience outside of Matt had been limited. An infatuation with a lifeguard. A short, never serious fling with a volunteer Habitat for Humanity worker. A bout of self-destruction with an adulterous teacher's assistant, and then…her fellow teacher. An ordinary man who happened to listen when her husband hadn't.

She'd thought maybe she was falling in love with her co-worker at the time, but the still small voice in her heart that had made her stop kissing him, followed by those conversations with her mother, father, and grandfather, had made her realize that real love wasn't something that could exist after just a few months with someone – that it was something raw and beautiful that persisted even in the wake of struggle and that bloomed even in the ashes of pain. But maybe she'd finally shoveled the ashes on too thick to hope for any signs of life beneath.

"I love you, darling," Grandpa said to Katrina, almost as though Julie weren't there. "I love you so very much." His eyes were full of pain and longing and tenderness. He was swaying with the strength of his emotion…or….maybe not. "I think I'm going to throw-up." He turned away from his wife and made a mad dash toward a hall bathroom. It didn't sound like he quite reached his target.

Katrina sighed. A long, heavy sigh.

"I'll clean it up!" he shouted from the hall.

"Damn right you will," Katrina muttered.


	18. Chapter 18

Matt added a stark line to the canvas, stepped back, and frowned. It didn't look right. He couldn't seem to paint, not the way he wanted, not since he'd learned Julie had cheated on him.

"It's not _really_ cheating," Landry had told him on the phone. "I mean, they didn't have _sex_."

Matt had wished Landry was there when he'd said it so he could just shove him, hard. Just shove someone, anyone. He'd broken that teacher's nose, the one who kissed her. It had felt good, while he was doing it, but then he'd just felt ashamed later.

Matt knew Landry had only been trying to reassure him, but it just threw him in a rage, the way people refused to acknowledge what an enormous betrayal it all was. It was if his best friend had died and people kept telling him, "Okay, you've grieved for a month now, get over it. This is unseemly. It's just death. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? Your friend is just gone forever."

Julie wasn't gone forever, of course, but maybe the Julie he _thought_ he _knew_ was. Or maybe that Julie had never existed.

The Julie he _didn't_ know was in El Paso visiting her grandfather. Matt was supposed to be camping with Jackson, but just as they'd prepared to leave in the truck, the gray sky had given way to a torrent of rain. So they'd painted instead in his little studio, Jackson making the splash art he so dearly loved.

The boy's work was bold and creative, Matt thought with a proud glow. It had a kind of raw, abstract passion in it. Not bad for a four year old. But it was true that when Jackson actually tried to draw something recognizable, he struggled to do so. His drawings didn't look like those of other boys his age. There was something off about his efforts. Maybe Julie was right to be so concerned. Maybe Matt should have paid more attention to her worries, talked through them with her, instead of dismissing them. But he hadn't wanted to believe anything was wrong with Jackson, and maybe he'd even been a little jealous of the way the boy seemed to have become the center of Julie's world. Matt had once been the center of her world.

So he'd thrown himself into his work. He had a real sense of long-term ambition for the first time in his life. Maybe he'd been ambitious when he'd wanted to win State in high school, but even as a teenager he knew that victory would fade and one day he'd be no more than a name on a plaque in a school in a small Texas town. Hell, he'd delivered pizzas the next year, after all. But he was working toward something lasting now – he was going to own his own gallery one day. He was going to make sure his name was known in the art world – one way or the other – on the creative or the business end. Yes, that had meant he'd worked a lot of hours, but what did it matter? Work was how he supported his family. Work was how he would ensure Jackson's future. And half the time it had felt as if Julie didn't need him for anything but co-parenting, taking out the trash, and listening to her complaints and worries. Work was where he was most valued.

He glanced at Jackson, who had gone to sleep on the small bed Matt had installed in his studio. "For naps," he'd lied to Jackson, though Jackson knew something was wrong between Mommy and Daddy. They'd kept up appearances as best they could. They'd shared meals three times a week. They'd only fought in front of him once. Mostly they were coolly polite to one another. But Jackson knew. He knew, even though he didn't ask about it.

Matt grabbed for his phone the moment it rang. He didn't want to wake the boy. He didn't recognize the number, but the caller ID said El Paso. It must be Julie. But why? She'd given up openly begging him to make up. She wouldn't be calling him for that. She was just kind of waiting it out now, he guessed, as if the feelings inside him were a storm that was bound to pass. She was being patient about it, he supposed, and she'd sworn a renewed fidelity. She'd even quit her job and taken one she didn't really want, to just avoid _that guy_. She was being faithful, as far as he knew, but she didn't seem to understand how completely his world had been turned upside down. It was like he didn't know what was true anymore. He'd just…never seen it coming. Maybe he should have. Maybe there had been hints, but he certainy hadn't seen them. And if he _hadn't_ seen _that_ coming…what else in his life might be a lie? What was the point, really, of believing in anything? How could you know if it was true?

"Hello," he half whispered, and made his way out of the studio. The storm had dissipated and turned to a slight drizzle.

"Matthew?"

For a moment, Matt thought the voice belonged to Coach Taylor, but it was a little too deep, and Coach didn't call him _Matthew_. .

"Uh…yeah." He leaned back against the wet wood of the studio.

"This is James Taylor. Julie's grandfather."

Matt had engaged in perhaps a total of six conversations with Julie's grandfather in the course of the past seven years. The man had certainly never called him. Suddenly, Matt's heart sank. There must have been an accident, if Mr. Taylor was calling - something wrong with Julie. It was instinctive, the way the love rose and mingled with fear, creating a sickening brew of emotion. "Is Julie all right?" The words were out before he realized he was supposed to be too angry with her to be worried about her.

"She's fine. I mean…she's not at all fine, but she's safe and sound."

Matt let out a sigh of relief, and, with the fear now gone, he only felt awkward. Why had this man called?

"My wife is dying," Mr. Taylor said.

Matt blinked. He was too bewildered by the call and the sudden exclamation to feel bad for the man, or to find any kind words. He remained silent.

"My first wife died in a car crash, you know, when she was barely fifty. I didn't think I would ever love anyone again, but I did, and now my second wife is dying too. Life is short, Matthew. You're what, 27? You have no idea how short life is."

Matt, still flailing for words, swallowed.

"I had so much ambition when I was young. Some of those goals I realized. Some I didn't. But you know, I'm seventy now, and the things I regret…they have nothing to do with my ambitions."

Matt wiped the drizzle of rain from his face. "Uh…okay."

"I almost cheated on Julie's grandmother once. I was very close to doing it. And then I thought of Eric. Not my wife. I thought of my son. Because at the moment, my wife and I were…not getting along…and…so I thought of Eric."

Well, _Julie_ didn't think of Jackson, Matt thought. Of course, maybe she _had_ thought of Jackson. She hadn't gone all the way through with the affair, after all.

_Affair._ He wasn't supposed to call it that, because they didn't actually screw each other.

He hated that people thought he wasn't supposed to call it that. Because that what it _felt_ like. That's what it was, as far as he was concerned.

"You're probably wondering why I'm telling you all this."

"Uh…yeah."

"I guess what I'm saying is…things aren't right between you and Julie right now. And maybe you're tempted to divorce her, or cheat on her to get back at her. And what I'm saying is - think of your son."

"I'm so tired of everyone saying that!" What, was he supposed to just suck it up, let his heart be trampled so his son could have married parents? "Why does everyone say that? What, we're supposed to be miserable so he can be…what? A little less miserable?"

"No. You're supposed to find something to hold onto until you get out the other side. And that's something to hold onto."

"What if there _is_ no other side?" What if it was just one long, endless tunnel?

"Well, maybe there's not, son. But you won't know until you've at least walked a few miles in the darkness."

Matt made an angry, wordless sound.

"You two need to get in counseling. Together. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But your son, and your marriage, and your shared history – it's all at least worth the _effort_, isn't it?"

"I don't know if it is."

"Then find out."

Nothing much more was said. Mr. Taylor asked after his great grandson. He said goodbye. Matt made his way back into the studio, where Jackson was stirring from his nap. The little boy sat up on the bed. "Daddy," he said. "Did it stop raining?"

"No," Matt answered. "It's still raining a little, just not as hard."

"Then can we go camping?"

"I don't know if it's a good idea to take the risk, Jacky. It could start raining again."

Jackson slumped forward and frowned. "Or the sun could come out."

Matt bit his bottom lip. "Yeah," he said softly. "I guess it's possible the sun _could_ come out. I guess we should at least try."


End file.
